About Me

A child of the Southwest and of the 50s -- a woman who knew me well once said, 'Yeah, the 1850s.' Generally culturally conservative and distrustful of new and improved innovative change. Very seldom overtly serious, but many a truth is spoke in jest and all of my truths are. Worked my way through UT when I was up in my 30s. If I'd, by some horrible miscalculation ended up in Bryan, I would've worked my way through that school over there. Have worked all over in printing and publishing. I've held a bunch of jobs and quit all of them but one. I am a journeyman printer and followed the trade and heard its dying gasps as it was throttled by technological change. I had a sponsored blog on a newspaper but quit the job.

Monday, January 24, 2011

World's wonders

I am constantly amazed at the wonderful things the Internet brings to our desk by the window. Friends send me photos of odd things, manmade and natural. I can get the latest on-scene news from faraway places. People I love can communicate instantly without intruding. I'm leading up to this delightful blog I found in the comments section of a site I fancy. The author lives in the East End of London and shares what he sees. Writing about an old craftsman:

Make no mistake, Maurice [Franklin] is a virtuoso. When rooms at Windsor Castle burnt out a few years ago, the Queen asked Maurice to make a new set of spindles for her staircase and invited him to tea to thank him for it too. “Did you grow up in the East End?” she enquired politely, and when Maurice nodded in modest confirmation of this, she extended her sympathy to him. “That must have been hard?” she responded with a empathetic smile, although with characteristic frankness Maurice disagreed. “I had a loving family,” he told her plainly, “That’s all you need for a happy childhood, you don’t need palaces for that.”

Read the rest of Maurice Franklin's story here and spend time with other people in the East End.